This post originally appeared at Lost Lagers. Lost Lagers is a joint project from DCBeer staff writer Michael Stein and Peter Jones. Together, they "aim to experience history through beer. Taking primary sources and modern techniques, they recreate historic beers."
Well we finally did it. Brewed a historical beer as close to 100% accurate as possible. We didn’t “take inspiration from” or brew “an homage to.” And as much as we’ve had tremendous success with “recreating” those beers, there’s just something so disheartening about lacking an actual recipe. When we do have one it makes the beer all the more special.
This special beer of which we speak is called Praize the Maize, and it’s a delicious drinker that will debut at the Lake Anne Brew House on Thursday, February 16, 2017, at 7:00 PM. The small 2-barrel batch was brewed with Lake Anne Head Brewer Jason Romano on December 12, 2016.
Poster designed by Michelle Schoening
More often than not we lack a complete recipe. Ingredients often seem up for debate, but it helps that we had a “complete” recipe. Quotes surround complete because while the recipe undeniably called for “N.Y. hops” the variety was not specified. Today New York state grows many hop varieties. Even in 1912 (the beer recipe date) there were multiple varieties grown by NY hop farmers. “N.Y. hops” might as well be listed as rice in a recipe…white? Brown? Jasmine?? Basmati???
The recipe came from the notebook of a friend, Paula, who’s grandfather, Paul, worked at many historic breweries, some of which are still around today. Paul worked at Lone Star Brewing Company in San Antonio, Texas, Anheuser Busch in St. Louis, and eventually the Weger Brother’s Brewing Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. These stints in his brewing career were prior to prohibition (generally listed as 1920-1933). Post prohibition he continued his work as Brew Master of the Buckeye Brewery in Toledo, Ohio (that brewery closed in 1972, not to be confused with the modern Buckeye Brewing Company in Cleveland).
Photo credit Buckeye Beer Toldeo, Ohio. All intellectual property therein or thereto belongs solely to its lawful owner or authorized user. Use believed available for educational and historical purposes.
Beyond his illustrious career as a brewer, he was an avid chemist and brewing student having graduated from the Wahl & Henius Institute and serving as Chairman of the Educational Committee while a member of the Master Brewers Association of America.
Photo credit Buckeye Beer Toldeo, Ohio. All intellectual property therein or thereto belongs solely to its lawful owner or authorized user. Use believed available for educational and historical purposes.
Back to the recipe. Pretty straight forward. It reads, “Draught Beer 1912” and calls for “Malt,” “Wheat Flakes” and “Grits.” Easy enough! After fermentables it reads “60 C. 60 C. 30 N.Y. hops” in gorgeous cursive. There’s no mistaking “N.Y. hops” but “C.”? Our research has lead us to this being a California hop.
To replicate the New York hops we used the Cluster variety from Crooked Creek hop farm. For California, we used an heirloom Cluster variety hop, called Ivanhoe®. Per Hops-Meister, the family farm who grew the variety, it “is Lake County’s very own hop variety that Hops-Meister has brought it back after a 100 year sabbatical. Ivanhoe® is a California original that makes you think of grandma’s garden. Hints of tomatillo, herbs, and veggies tantalize the nose of any beer that this is included in, and brought out through delicious pairings with food. Ivanhoe® is a dual purpose hop that has been named after the chivalrous farmer who gallantly permitted cuttings to be taken from his lands and offered many words of wisdom and encouragement to these pioneering California hops farmers.”
Following Paula’s primary sources and family history, we located Paul in Philadelphia in 1912 at the Weger Brother’s Brewery. Thanks to Rich Wagner’s Philadelphia Beer we know that Weger Bros. brewed three brands of beer: Bavarian Beer, Erlanger Light, and Hohenschwangau Export Dark. This 1912 “Draught Beer” was likely Erlanger Light. It is followed with two more recipes titled “1913 Bottle” and “1913 Export.”
Often in 1912, as is done in modern breweries today, beer that was sold across the bar or on your grocer’s shelves was called something entirely different by the people who made it. Today you might know your favorite beer as the brewery brands it, for example, “Lover of Lager Double Doppel Dunkel Bier,” whereas the brewer might simply refer to it in the cellar as “Bock.”
As for the Praize the Maize, it comes from a saying by former Pennsylvania brewer, zymurgist, and raconteur who has been writing about beer longer than us. His name is Thomas Cizauskas and he was quoted in a 1997 Zymurgy article. The phrase was revived in a lager (on a homebrew scale) in 2014 by Charlottesville brewer, James Barlow.
We are known to often utter the phrase ourselves and given that the 1912 AND 2017 recipes were 40% corn, we echoed Tom’s sentiment with our title, purposefully spelled incorrect. In Tom’s own words, as brewmaster at the Manayunk Brewing Company 20 years ago:
“People started to brew with corn for a reason, taste being the bottom line. Don’t scorn the corn. Praise the maize!”
